So dear that you weep when the northern blasts blow?

Why your face pressed to the cold window pane,

Longing to mingle your tears with the rain—

Is there something down under the snow?

Is it only a blossom, a summer’s delight,

That is freezing and dying this cold, bitter night?

That is only a fancy, the floweret is warm,

And the drift has enfolded it safe from the storm—

Is there something yet under the snow?

Something near to the heart down under the snow,

That has robbed the wan cheek of its once carmine glow,

That has stolen the beam of the eye—tears instead

Bespeak how in anguish the sore heart hath bled

For a little child under the snow.

For a dear little prattler that littered the floor,

And laughed as he tumbled your work o’er and o’er

For a little gold head that made sunny the room,

Now bright’ning the darkness and chill of the tomb,

That is dreaming out under the snow.

Only resting awhile in garments all white,

Away from the blackness and sin of to-night;

Away from the vice and the wrong of the street,

Not heeding the song of the rain or the sleet,

Still sleeping down under the snow.

How many a mother her darling would lay

In the last, narrow home—hide her treasure away—

If only to know its soul was at rest

With an innocent heart in an innocent breast,

Far, far down under the snow!